


Funny You Should Ask

by cootykat



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Coming of Age, F/F, F/M, Growing Up, Little bit of Fluff, M/M, Slow Build, alright a whole lot of fluff but patience I'm getting around to it, angsty poet! theon, oh my god this is gonna have so much jersey angst help me, soccer star! robb stark, the front bottoms - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 06:23:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5732686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cootykat/pseuds/cootykat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Starks move to Pyke, a dead end summer town of fishers and men basking in their former glory. This is a big bad modern AU full of angst, courtesy of lame artsy poet Theon Greyjoy and his oblivious new friend who may or may not be sunshine incarnate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Funny You Should Ask

**Author's Note:**

> This combines my favorite things: Game of Thrones, Throbb, the Front Bottoms, and pretentious art hoe Theon. This is going to be a multichapter fic. I have mot of it all lined out but I'm still trying to decide on an end. Ramsay's gonna make an appearance along with a bunch of other characters who'll get added to the tags as they appear. I have this picture of Ramsay in my mind as that talentless hack who does "performance concept art" at his father's gallery and it's all about suffering and sacrifice or whatever and Theon's totally enamored because he's never met another person who really appreciates art and listens to his lame poetry other than his sister and occasionally Robb and Ramsay totally takes advantage and starts doing all this fucked up stuff to Theon and calls it "art". God I hate those guys. ANYWAY. Here it is, Alix, Hope you enjoy  
> Also I made Theon significantly less shit lord in this, or I guess he's still a self serving, self pitying little shitlord, but he actually starts to grow a conscience.

Theon sat with his back against the half pipe. He thumbed through the rhyming dictionary in his lap, flipping past dogeared pages and words carefully underlined in blue. He riffled through his backpack, pushing aside the half empty pack of Marlboros and the tangle of earphones he knew he’d curse himself for knotting later and withdrew the marbled notebook and one of the fat black Sharpies he’d “borrowed” from the art room before school had let out.  
He pushed himself from the wall so that he was facing the heavily graffitied underside of the ramp and searched for an empty space. Most of the words on the plywood were his own, though the occasional tag and rude remark was scrawled next to his halting cursive. Theon settled on a gap between one of his previous lists and a drawing of stick figure bent over the hood of a car, aptly labelled “fuck truck”, and propped his notebook against one of the cross beams. 

Nothing quite like the waves after dark  
The push and pull of the swing at the park

The column of words before him confirmed that park and dark did in fact rhyme, along with the words lark and spark, but he didn’t see what any of that had to do with what he was trying to write. He wanted something profound, something raw about the reality of being stuck, the frustration of being surrounded by water on three sides but still not being able to escape, to fly like the gulls that he often watched vanishing over the bay.  
He dashed off the words dark and park in curving black lines and brought the cigarette he kept stashed behind his ear to his lips. He was patting his pockets for a lighter when the thundering of wheels sounded overheard, followed by a shout and the heavy thud of a body hitting the asphalt. Theon saw the skateboard sneak below the low hanging rails and was just about to turn back to search for a lighter when he heard sniffling and a quiet sob. 

With a heavy roll of his eyes, he dodged beneath the rafters and walked toward the kid sitting flat on his ass right where he’d fallen from his board. His bush of red curls bounced when he looked up to stare at Theon, wide blue eyes watering. The phrase that first jumped to Theon’s mind was “river in winter”. Well, no, the first one had been “about to tear this dumbass a new one for being stupid enough to fall off a three foot incline”, but that wasn’t the point right now. 

“Hey,” said Theon, the easy smile usually reserved for visits to his mother stretching across his lips  
The kid said nothing. He gave another loud sniff and turned his eyes to the ground, his face flushing a deep shade of scarlet. Now that Theon really looked, the boy appeared to be only a few years younger than he was, yet there he sat, a few stray tears running down his cheeks. Theon felt a twinge of second hand embarrassment and something akin to the pity he reserved for himself whenever his father decided to rechristen him “Disappointment Greyjoy” after the fifth beer of the night. 

“Y’know,” started Theon “the first time I tried to go down this ramp, I knocked out two of my teeth. I put them under my pillow but my sister said the tooth fairy didn’t visit idiots.” 

He really had, though he was four at the time and despite his sister comment, he still found a white scallop and a new blue crayon under his pillow the next morning. The boy gave a watery laugh that quickly turned to hiccups. 

“I’m-” hic “Robb. But with two B’s” 

“Well, I’m Theon with no B’s,” 

Robb with two B’s gave another laugh but winced as he palms brushed the ground. He held the hand up to his face and paled at the scratches. 

“My mom is gonna be so mad,” Robb said “I was supposed to at the park with my brothers and sisters, but I didn’t want to sit there again and Jon said he would look after them and I was supposed to be the grown up…” 

Theon wondered how many times Robb had been sat down and told to be “the grown up”. His own older brothers were too busy arguing over who would get to drop him on his head next to decide which of them was the adult and even so, it was his sister who usually made sure he had food to eat and fresh pens that she stole from work. 

“Hold on,” Theon said

He ducked beneath the half pipe and returned with his backpack and a half filled bottle of water. He knelt beside the younger boy and withdrew a tub of ointment and a fistful of band aids. Theon shook the bottle of water and Robb held out his hands. He bit down on his lip as the the blood and sediment washed out of the scrapes and wiped his hands on his shorts. 

“I’m here for the summer,” said Robb, eyes trained on Theon as he plopped a glob of antibacterial ointment into his palms.

Theon nodded and began unpeeling band aids. Everything about this kid screamed BENNY, from his neatly pressed khakis to the white socks he probably wore on on the beach. 

“I’ve been in Pyke all of my life,” said Theon

“Wow! That’s so cool! It must be like summer all the time for you,” 

Robb beamed at the thought of ice cream and sunshine year round and Theon shrugged. 

“Yeah, something like that,” he sighed “You’re all patched up. Better get back to the park before your mom comes to pick you up.”

Robb nodded but didn’t move to get up. He spared glance at the half pipe, frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

“Or… you could stick around for a bit and I could show you how to skate without skinning yourself,”

Theon figured the kid could use some time away from being “the grown up”.Robb sprang from the ground and went to look for his skateboard. 

“I’m real sorry, what did your name was again?” 

“Robb Stark,” 

“That’s the one,” said Theon with a snap of his fingers “hmmm… Stark. One sec,” 

He took the Sharpie from his pocket and added “Stark” to the end of his list and dashed back to find the redhead standing on the back end of his board. Theon planted cigarette firmly between his teeth and started toward the top of the half pipe. This was going to be a long summer.


End file.
